The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1887-05-12
FARMING AS A BUSINESS.
Read before the Farmers Institute at High
Point, N. c., April 80, 1887.
BY ]. D. HODGES, OF DAVE COUNTY.

teresting NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. that [
gratefully appreciate. [ was inclined
to hesitate in accepting your fattering
invitation, because [ could not help
feeling that while there would be as
.sembled here many whose ripe expe-
rience and sage counsels would add
profit to and reflect honor upon this
meeting, l could bring you no such
help. And if I allowed myself to be
persuaded by the earnest and eloquent
appeal of your excellent s%uperintend-
emit, it was because | believed that
however much [ may be excelled by
my brother farmers of Davidson, Ran
dolph, and of historic Guilford, in
everything else, l need not yield to
them in the warm interest which [
have felt all my life in the great cause
of practical farming in North Caro-
lima, in it's widest and best sense and
[ may add because [ feel that, while [
may not be able to contribute any.
thing Of worth to your institute, yet it
will be able to impart to me many
lessons Of value and usefulness.
By request Of your worth superin-
tendent, [ am to present for your con
sideration,
FARMING AS A BUSINESS.
That farming is a business, just as
law is a business, just is merchandise
is a business, all will doubtless admit.
That is to say, the proposition would
be readily admitted as a theory, but
as a veritable, living, practical truth,
exempliied in the experience and OBJ
s~ervation of men, it might not be so
universally conceded. Still it is true
that were a 1.-THE of business tact and
business method necessary to success
in any other vocation, given to that
Of farming, then, indeed, would this
land Of ours so highly favored in soil,
and stream, and sunshine, bloom as
the rose and become the happy abode
of the greatest of earth's population.
This tier of counties, lying along the
foot Of the mountains, from Virginia
to South Carolina, with it's rich soil
and varied productions with it's wheat
fields exceeding those of the shipper
of Russia; with it's maize soldier,
plumper and better than any grown
elsewhere with its fruits and melons
the most luscious and healthful with
its tubers and vegetables unsurpassed;
with it's mines of gold and silver, iron
and copper-its diamonds, its beryls,
its amethysts and ats u Hiddenite
with it's extensive forests of every
variety of useful and ornamental and
precious wood with it's thousands of
medicinal herbs, that are for the cure
of the worlds sick, "growing wild
upon it's uncultivated ground with it's
health-giving waters, that are for the
healing of the nations, gushing in
overlooking abundance from crevice
and rock with its thousands of limped
streams, Astounding in palatable food,
and proudly holding in their gently
murmuring and softly rhythmic flow
a giant power by the harnessed energy
of which might roll the wheels and
turn the spindles, and shoot the shut
ties Of a continent. [ repeat this
Piedmont section Of North Carolina,
with all these advantages, and many
others too numerous to mention, to-
gether with its sturdy, stalwart, hon
est, manhood and it's sweetly modest
and beautifully Christian womanhood,
is, in it's capabilities and possibilities,
the grandest country known to human
history. Your speaker has looked
upon and carefully studied the re-
sources and capabilities of many Of
the American States, as well as those
of most of the European countries,
and he deliberately declares to you,
after due consideration, that he has
beheld an area of equal extent,
that combined SO many natural adj
vantages, with so few natural disad-
vantages, as does the Piedmont section
Of North Carolina. And what we
need now, as a people, in developing
these unrealized possibilities, is, per-
haps, not so much railroad and trans
portation facilities, however useful
and important these may be not SO
much an influx of capital and popula-
ton, however desirable this might be, |
also-not so much these-as system
attic habits of industry and business
like methods applied to agricultural
pursuits. I am not here to upbraid
our fathers for improvident methods,
or to arraign the men ola generation
just past, for a reckless waste of our
forests and lands. Rather would I